The objective of this research work is to gain a better understanding of the molecular mechanism involved in the translation of genetic messages in a mammalian cell. The near term objective is to study the mechanism of protein synthesis initiation in cell-free system from rabbit reticulocytes. Also, included in this research is the study of the effects of hormones in protein synthesis in animal cells. BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES: Majumdar, A., Bose, K.K., Gupta, N.K. and Wahba, A., Specific Binding of Escherichia coli Chain Initiation Factor 2 to formyl methionine transferase RNA fMet, J. Biol. Chem., 251, 137-140 (1976). Chatterjee, B., Dasgupta, A., Palmieri, S., and Gupta, N.K., Protein Synthesis in Rabbit Reticulocytes: Characteristics of mRNA Directed methionine transferase RNA fMet Binding to 40S Ribosomes, Fed. Proc. Abs., 35, 1515 (1976).